A place for the Hopeful (and the "Hater") in us to discuss Sex, Love, and whatever's clever with like minded people who are also in Limbo with Love.

What comes after: The Uncertainty of Self

“So tell me, where shall I go? To the left, where nothing’s right.. or to the right, where nothing’s left?” – Higher Perspective

Boy meets girl, they fall in love, get married, have kids, grow old, see their kids have kids, then die.

We all know the story, we’ve been taught it for forever. It’s been embedded in our brains, in our fairytales, in our movies, in our lives since God knows when. It’s almost a foregone conclusion that that’s how it supposed to go down for everyone, right? You find your “other” and you’re off to the races.

“Ooh, he seems nice, have fun on your first date!”

“Oh wow, it’s been a year already? Time flies.”

“Is he coming? He hasn’t missed our family vacations in 3 years.”

“Oh my God! It looks beautiful! Congratulations! Okay, okay… so how did he propose?”

So when you get thrown off course like I did by my last relationship, you’re kind of at a crossroads in how to proceed on the road back to Love. Without warning, you can get blindsided and go in circles in a ditch, and that’s where I was for 3 years. I was in limbo from 2012-2015. I don’t even remember 2013. I was fucking depressed and SO in my own head about the erasure of my “promised” future that that year is a wash for me. It’s really only now with the rediscovery of myself I was able to get up from that “ditch of destruction” but I still don’t know where I am, metaphorically speaking.

The plan was set. I was to wed my girlfriend turned fiancée of 4 and a half years. You have this forward momentum going then as one piece falls out of line, everything else falls apart with it. No marriage means there’s no wife, I don’t become a husband, I don’t have kids, I don’t get grand kids, etc. The foreshadowed future is rewritten and now nothing more than a pipe dream. So it’s like what to do now? What was promised to me was taken away and I’m left with uncertainty & pain. So what do I do with myself?

Let me guess: “get yourself up and dust yourself off” right? “People lose people in relationships all the time”. Correct. But not everyone loses a fiancé all the time. Shit, people break up because the freaking channel was changed while their partner was watching their favorite program. It’s not the same as severing a union that was supposed to last until your last breath left your body.

So, as you might have guessed, the attempt to move on and possibly get into a new relationship has been hard for me.

On my road to recovery, I do want to love again because I have love to give. But at the same time I don’t know how to love now because I thought I was doing everything right originally and now I don’t know what to think. Also, I hate when people try to simplify my situation and that I’m supposed to treat it as just “another relationship” and that I can recover and “get back in the game” with the flap of my jacket and a pop of my collar. You have to understand, in my head:

You’re only supposed to buy a ring… no… THE ring – ONCE.

You’re only supposed to get down on one knee – ONCE.

You’re only supposed to declare your love and propose – ONCE.

You’re only supposed to hear that sweet one worded answer from her – ONCE.

I got led astray and my “Stairway to Heaven” was shattered. I thought I would be taken to Paradise because of what the path had promised me as an adolescent. Now… all I feel is a sense of betrayal and I don’t trust in my judgement anymore. I’m all fucked up.

Trying to transition from “single” to “mingle” has also proven difficult. With new relationships, it’s been pretty hard to get back down to a just “regular” dating. Being in a relationship then getting engaged thinking you were going to get married only to go back to things like “hey… do you like cats?” with someone new is jarring and almost juvenile. I don’t want to go back to the clubs & bars (despite there being lookers) to engage in menial banter.

I’m so past the trivial stuff (even though I know it’s needed to establish the beginning of a relationship) that I just want to get back to the LOVE, you know? That sweet sense of solace. That warm horizon that you see at daybreak where everything looks positive and you know it’s going to be an amazing day. I want THAT back. It’s hard to go back down from such a high like that. You can’t listen to Biggie’s “One More Chance (remix)” and go back to the original. You can’t have stuffed crust pizza and go back to regular! You’re really gonna go back to a 4 inch screen for your phone after experiencing 5.5?! Blu Ray back to DVD? DVR to VCR? Yeah, good luck with that.

But on a serious note – I am aware that just because I’ve been further in the relationship timeline then a possible suitor doesn’t mean I should hurry things up to get back to that euphoric state of being. The impending relationship would most likely implode on itself.

I am fearful though of doling out my energy to anyone and everyone (like a vending machine) just because I want love back badly and they “pay” me attention.

I don’t want to fool myself into jumping into relationships because I miss being in one.

So… what do I do? What do I follow now? What compass do I use to guide my way towards what I long for? Do I still even long for it? How do I find that out? What do I listen to? Who do I listen to? Do I listen to anything?

As you can see, I’m still scatter-brained. I’m just a leaf in the wind right now and I have no idea what comes next.

Martini

So, did you ever break up from a meaningful relationship? How did you handle it going forward? Did you dump the person and brush your shoulders off? Were you the dump-ee and you wallowed in sadness? Were you like me and found yourself as a leaf in the wind? Or did you plant yourself and say “never again” and turned #TeamSingle4Lyfe?